Osvobozhdeniye-istsand New-Iskrists, Monarchists and Girondists

Published:Vperyod,No. 9, March 8 (February 23), 1905.

      Published according to the text inVperyod.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages221-222.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Osvobozhdeniye,No. 66, published a review of Martynov’s pamphletTwo Dictatorships(approved and recommended by the editors ofIskra;see issue No. 84). As was to be expected, the liberal bourgeois
does not conceal his sympathies with the opportunist wing of the
Social-Democratic movement.Osvobozhdeniyeregards Martynov’s
pamphlet,“like the work of Mr. Akimov”, as“one of the
most interesting contributions to Social-Democratic literature of the present
day”.Gould a liberal have reacted in any other way to the preaching
of tail-ism, which seeks to frighten the revolutionary class with the dire
perspective of participation in the provisional government and the
“revolutionary dictatorship” in ademocraticrevolution
(which Martynov, in his fear of “Jacobinism” confounds
with the socialist revolution!)? Is it merely a coincidence thatOsvobozhdeniye, in the article “A Significant Turn”,
welcomed Plekhanov’s ideas of making concessions to the revisionists? How is one
to account forOsvobozhdeniye’sassertion (No. 57) that in fact, the
Menshevists are now defending something more vital and essential than the
Bolshevists”? Is it not because “the only hope for the ideological
vitality of Russian liberalism lies in the vitality of Social-Democratic
opportunism” (see our publicationAn Obliging

			     Liberal[1])?

Was Mr. Struve right or wrong in contending that Trotsky’s pamphletOur Political Tasks, publishedunder the editorship of
“Iskra”(see issue No.72) “is
perfectly right in defending certainideas with which readers of Social-Democratic literature have been familiar from
      the writings of Messrs. Akimov, Martynov, Krichevsky, and other so-called
      Economists” (Osvobozhdeniye, No. 57)? Had Martynov and
    Co. stopped to think of these questions, they might perhaps have been able
    to grasp the puzzling (how very, very puzzling!) ideas of the oldIskraabout the similarity of the relations between the Jacobins
    and the Girondists, on the one hand, and between the revolutionary
    Social-Democrats and the opportunists, on the other. (This idea was first
    advanced, if we are not mistaken, in the leading article ofIskra,
    No. 2, written by Plekhanov.) Were the Girondists traitors to the cause of
    the Great French Revolution? They were not. But they were inconsistent,
    wavering, opportunist champions of that cause.That is whythey
    were opposed by the Jacobins, who upheld the interests of the advanced class
    of the eighteenth century as consistently as the revolutionary Social-Democrats uphold the interests of the advanced class of the twentieth. That
    is why the downright betrayers of the cause of the great revolution, the
    monarchists, the clerical constitutionalists, etc., supported the Girondists
    and shielded them from the attacks of the Jacobins. Are you beginning to see
    light now, most honourable Girondist Martynov? Not yet? Well, we shall try
    to clarify the point further. Are the new-Iskrists traitors to the
    proletarian cause? No. But they are inconsistent, wavering, opportunist
    champions of the cause (and of the organisational and tactical principles
    illumining the cause). That is why their position is opposed by the
    revolutionary Social-Democrats (by some directly and overtly, by others
    covertly, behind the closed doors of their editorial offices, with devices
    and ruses). That is why the new-Iskrists are ideologically sup ported and
    shielded by theOsvobozhdeniyecrowd—thedown right
      betrayersof the proletarian cause. Are you beginning to see light
    now, most honourable Girondist Martynov?

[1]First published as a leaflet, Geneva, November 6, 1904. See present
edition, Vol. 7, pp. 486-89.—Ed.